Nets look to build chemistry off court on long West Coast road trip
In the good old days, Steve Nash would have left his credit card behind a bar and told his players to have a good time.
“But that ain’t happening in COVID for awhile,” Nash said. “So we’ll have to find creative ways to continue to grow and find that bond.”
The Nets are set to embark on their longest road trip of the season: A five-game, 12-day, West Coast trip that starts with Saturday’s matchup against the Golden State Warriors. During Nash’s time as an NBA star, he would organize chess tournaments for him and his teammates.
“You want them to bond, but in the old days, we bonded by going out to dinner, going to a bar together. You can’t do that in COVID. It’s not a normal world,” the Nets’ coach said. “At the same time you don’t want to have a chess tournament, and everyone’s like, ‘Oh my God, who is this corny guy that’s dragging us all over the country playing chess?’ You have to be careful. You want to do things with them that they enjoy, that brings ‘em together, and that’s not the easiest thing to do with star athletes who have seen it and done it all and are kind of immune to the mundane joys in life.
“We’ll try to pick our spots and spend as much time as we can together, and if we can get creative and hit with one of these ideas that isn’t a chess tournament, we’ll take it, but that is a challenge. It’s a challenge for us being a new group, new staff, everything that’s thrown at us, the changes, the trade, COVID. We just haven’t had a clean runway.”
Still, the trip offers a unique opportunity for the Nets to build a chemistry and camaraderie that has evaded them this season. There has been no practice time in-between games, chemistry took a step back (no pun intended) with the James Harden trade, and COVID health and safety protocols have kept Kevin Durant off the court at different points throughout the course of the season.
“With the bus rides, plane rides, being in the locker room with these guys, I feel like we are still in a bubble no matter what,” Durant said. “So, being around these guys for this long, I think we’re building that chemistry and getting to know each other on a personal level throughout the whole season. Obviously, being out and going out to dinners and being able to hang out in public together would definitely help, but I think we’re still getting a lot of team bonding and building as were going through the season. It is just about executing what we need to do on both ends of the floor, staying on one page and I think we’re trending in the right direction.”
The players may not be able to go out, but there’s a silver lining in that. COVID protocols will force players to stay lowkey, and in turn, that might be a benefit to a team looking to build chemistry on the fly.
“We can’t do shit really anyway. I think we’re gonna be spending a lot more time together on this road trip,” Nets veteran center DeAndre Jordan said. “It’s only five games, but it is a longer trip day wise. We’ll be probably hanging out as much as we can together. I think we build a lot of team bonding on trips like this, a lot of camaraderie, whether it’s eating together, playing cards, hanging out. That’s gonna help us on the floor, being able to just build that chemistry with guys and obviously once we get Kevin back from his timeout we’ll incorporate. But I think this road trip will be good for us.”
The trip will be good — so long as Nash doesn’t try to heap his chess tournaments onto the players.
